God's soveraignty displayed from Job 9. 12. : Behold he taketh away, who can hinder him? &c., or, A discourse shewing, that God doth, and may take away from his creatures what hee pleaseth, as to the matter what, the place where, the time when, the means and manner how, and the reasons thereof : with an application of the whole, to the distressed citizens of London, whose houses and goods were lately consumed by the fire : an excitation of them to look to the procuring causes of this fiery tryal, the ends that God aims at in it, with directions how to behave themselves under their losses / by William Gearing ...

SECT. VIII.

[ VIII] God takes away Children, and dear Relations: When Job's cattle, ser∣vants, and substance were taken away, the Lord suffereth the Devil to bereave him of his Children also: We are to know, that all that die for sin, do not die in sin; this under-garden is Gods own, and all that groweth in it, the flowers, trees, and fruits be his own; if some be but Summer apples, he may pluck them off before others: When God takes away our Children, they are not gone away, but sent before; and we should not think them to be lost to us who are found to Christ: God many times takes away our Children, lest wickedness should alter their un∣derstanding, or deceit beguile their minds; though they were soon dead, yet fulfilled they much time; and they may justly say, mors nobis lucrum, death to us is great gain, in that both they escaped this worlds miseries, and were quickly put into the possession of Eternal felicity; if they have cast their flower, their bloom is fallen into Christs Lap, and as they were lent a while to

Time, so now they are given to Eterni∣ty; and whereas others are fain to pass thorow even a vast Ocean of troubles, they by a short cut, and a little Bridg, have gained to arrive in the Land of the Living by the Conduct of Death. Me∣thinks I hear even Christ from heaven more earnestly rebuking those that would not suffer little children to come unto him of their own accord (con∣cerning whom he hath said,* 1.1 Of such is the Kingdome of God) than he did those that rebuked those that brought them. And these little ones (who when they came into the world, might as well have laughed as wept, having e∣qual possibility to both) yet they wept as soon as they were born the Prophets of their own calamity, for their tears are witnesses of their misery, as yet they spake not, yet they prophesied: What did they prophesie? that they should come into the world with pain and fear; being now past out of the world, to cry loud unto their Parents and Friends that do mourn for their ab∣sence, speaking not in the language of Canaan, but of the heavenly Jerusa∣lem; if you did love us, you would rejoyce, because we go to our Father;

and weep not for us, but weep for your selves; and in your weeping for us (as you cannot chuse but you will) mourn not as men without hope, we have that you hope for:* 1.2 Our Angels, which behold the face of our heavenly Fa∣ther, have now performed one of their offices for us, to carry our Souls out of our Nurses Laps into Abrahams Bo∣some, and in time will execute the se∣cond, when he shall send them that can best command them, to gather his Elect from the four winds, and from the one end of the heaven to the other; then our bones shall be raised out of the Beds where ye have laid them, and shall be coupled with their sinews, com∣passed with their flesh, covered with their skin, and crowned with immorta∣lity: This we have in hope, and not in hand; but we have received the earnest thereof in our souls, that are already in the joyes of our Saviour, and wait for the other at the appointed time, which cannot be long. I have read of L. Paulus Aemilius, who having lost his two only Sons, all the hope of his house; the one a little before, the o∣ther presently after his triumph, told the people of Rome (who were sorry

in his behalf) that he was glad in theirs, in that the calamity which had befallen him, might excuse them.* 1.3 Now O ye that have lost all your children, if your seely Scape-goats have carried the penalty of your family with them, and excused the hoped-for posterity of your other Relations, let them glori∣fie God on their behalf, and say you with Aemilius, I am glad that God hath given just occasion for you to la∣ment for me, rather than for me to be∣moan you.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Mark 10.14. Plorabant nascentes, Prophetae suae cala∣mitatis: lachrymae enim testes sunt mise∣riae; non∣dum lo∣queban∣tur, & jam Pro∣phetabant. Quid Pro∣phetabant? In labore se ventu∣ros, vel timore, &c. Aug. de verb. Apost. Serm. 24.
• * 1.2

  Mat. 18.10.
• * 1.3

  Valer. Maxim. lib. 5. cap. 10.